ABSTRACT
ELECTIONS ARE among the most interesting and important political events in the life of a country. Even non-democratic governments reinforce the value of elections by routinely using them to justify a regime’s existence. The 1936 constitution of the Soviet Union guaranteed “all Soviets of Working People’s Deputies, from rural and city Soviets of Working People’s Deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., inclusive, are elected by the citizens by direct vote.” Furthermore, elections were to take place “on the basis of universal… and equal suffrage by secret ballot.”2 In practice, of course, the Communist Party controlled nominations, and candidates ran largely unopposed. More recently, Saddam Hussein “won” a reelection referendum in Iraq with 100 percent of the vote just months before he would be deposed by the U.S. military. Seven years prior to that, he had received 99.96 percent of the vote.3 In terms of raw numbers, nearly as many elections were held in dictatorships from 1946 to 2000 as in democracies. However, there were also significantly more dictatorships than democracies throughout the world between 1960 and 1990. When this disparity is controlled for, elections are found to have been held almost twice as often in democracies as in dictatorships.4 Nevertheless, that so many dictatorships have held elections will likely come as a surprise to many readers.
